SixFoot
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- Sep 4, 2014
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Senate moves forward with amendment to the Constitution on elections TheHill
"The Senate on Monday advanced a constitutional amendment meant to reverse two recent Supreme Court decisions on campaign spending."
https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/6-3-14_--_udall_amendment_letter_final.pdf
Pages 4 and 5 really caught my attention. Woe is the day I found myself in agreement with something the ACLU said.
Recognizing both the severe harm to political debate through overbroad laws that suppress all issue advocacy mentioning a candidate for office, and the difficulty in making principled distinctions between issue and express advocacy under a totality of the circumstances approach, the courts have rightly rejected measures that allow the government to restrict issue advocacy at all.
Sections (1)(2) and (2)(2) are designed to, and would, completely overturn that legal distinction between issue and express advocacy and permit the government to criminalize and censor all issue advocacy that mentions or refers to a candidate under the argument that it supports or opposes that candidate.
To give just a few hypotheticals of what would be possible in a world where the Udall proposal
is the 28th Amendment:
• Congress would be allowed to restrict the publication of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s forthcoming memoir “Hard Choices” were she to run for office;
Sen. Ted Cruz gives his breakdown on his disapproval in this lengthy 51 minute video:
I'm personally all for the idea of severely restricting the ability of a corporation (not actual people) to drown a candidate in hundreds of millions of dollars, but this is an astronomically stupid way of going about it. This vote is just further proof of tyranny masked in good intentions. I personally do not want the last Amendment of the Constitution to be the one that destroys the First.
Link HERE to Senate Resolution.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Your thoughts?
"The Senate on Monday advanced a constitutional amendment meant to reverse two recent Supreme Court decisions on campaign spending."
https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/6-3-14_--_udall_amendment_letter_final.pdf
Pages 4 and 5 really caught my attention. Woe is the day I found myself in agreement with something the ACLU said.
Recognizing both the severe harm to political debate through overbroad laws that suppress all issue advocacy mentioning a candidate for office, and the difficulty in making principled distinctions between issue and express advocacy under a totality of the circumstances approach, the courts have rightly rejected measures that allow the government to restrict issue advocacy at all.
Sections (1)(2) and (2)(2) are designed to, and would, completely overturn that legal distinction between issue and express advocacy and permit the government to criminalize and censor all issue advocacy that mentions or refers to a candidate under the argument that it supports or opposes that candidate.
To give just a few hypotheticals of what would be possible in a world where the Udall proposal
is the 28th Amendment:
• Congress would be allowed to restrict the publication of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s forthcoming memoir “Hard Choices” were she to run for office;
Sen. Ted Cruz gives his breakdown on his disapproval in this lengthy 51 minute video:
I'm personally all for the idea of severely restricting the ability of a corporation (not actual people) to drown a candidate in hundreds of millions of dollars, but this is an astronomically stupid way of going about it. This vote is just further proof of tyranny masked in good intentions. I personally do not want the last Amendment of the Constitution to be the one that destroys the First.
Link HERE to Senate Resolution.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
Your thoughts?